UToledo Health will host a celebration this evening to recognize individuals who chose to become living kidney donors and to encourage others to consider making the same life-saving decision.
The event coincides with National Donate Life Month, which highlights the importance of organ, eye and tissue donation.
“This is a way for us to say thank you and acknowledge the incredible impact they’ve had on our community,” said Dr. Obi Ekwenna, a UToledo Health transplant and urologic surgeon. “They truly have presented the gift of life.”
The reception will feature patient testimonials from living kidney donors, kidney recipients and feature a question-and-answer session for people thinking about becoming a living donor. There also will be informational displays about the living kidney donation process. Registration for the event is closed.
For those who need a kidney transplant, Ekwenna said receiving an organ from a living donor is the gold standard.
Kidneys from living donors tend to start working more quickly and continue working longer than those from deceased donors. Living donation may also significantly reduce the length of time individuals wait to receive a new organ.
However, the number of living kidney transplants in the United States has not kept pace with the overall growth in kidney transplantation.
In 2015, 31% of the 17,878 kidney transplants done in the U.S. came from living donors. Last year, a record 27,759 people received a kidney transplant in the U.S, but only about 23% of those came from living donors.
“There’s no question about it, becoming a living donor is a major decision. It’s not something to take lightly,” Ekwenna said. “However, the impact is so great. We would like to see the number of people stepping forward to do this increase.”
Donors can give to a specific person or donate altruistically to someone they don’t know. Prior to becoming a living kidney donor, individuals are put through a battery of tests to evaluate the health of their kidneys as well as their overall mental and physical health.
Recent advancements in surgical techniques have made living kidney donation — already a low-risk procedure — even safer over the last decade. A study published last summer in the medical journal JAMA, for example, found a mortality rate of less than 1 in 10,000 for donors between 2013 and 2022.
“This event is an opportunity for us to explain a little more about the process and highlight how safe these procedures are,” Ekwenna said. “The risks are minimal and for the overwhelming majority of donors, there’s no long-term impact on their health or quality of life.”
The University of Toledo Medical Center, northwest Ohio’s only transplant center, has been performing kidney transplants for more than 50 years, and celebrated its 3,000th transplant in 2023. UTMC performed 191 kidney transplants last year and has completed more than 800 transplants since the beginning of 2021.
Individuals interested in becoming a living kidney donor can contact UTMC’s living donor program for more information by calling 419.383.3419.
